The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas

by Francisco de Quevedo

On one hand, there were in multitudes, disgraces, misfortunes, plagues, griefs, and troubles; all in a clamour against the physicians. The plague confessed, indeed, that she had struck many; but ’twas the doctor did their business. Melancholy and disgrace said the like; and misfortunes of all sorts made open protestation, that they never brought any man to his grave without the help and advice of a doctor. So that the gentlemen of the faculty were called to account for those they had killed. They took their places upon a scaffold, with pen, ink, and paper about them; and still as the dead were called, some or other of them answered to the name, and declared the year and day when such a patient passed through his hand.

They began the inquiry at Adam, who, methought, was severely handled about an apple. “Alas!” cried Judas that was by, “if that were such a fault, what will become of me that sold and betrayed my Lord and Master?” Next came the patriarchs, and then the apostles, who took their places by Saint Peter. It was worth the noting, that at this day there was no distinction between kings and beggars, before the judgment-seat. Herod and Pilate, so soon as they put out their heads, found it was like to go hard with them. “My judgment is just,” quoth Pilate. “Alack!” cried Herod, “what have I to trust to? Heaven is no place for me, and in Limbo I should fall among the innocents I have murdered; so that without more ado I must e’en take up my lodging in hell: the common receptacle of notorious malefactors.”

There came in immediately upon this a kind of a sour rough-hewn fellow. “Look ye,” says he, stretching out his arm, “here are my letters.” The company wondered at the humour, and asked the porter what he was; which he himself overhearing, “I am,” quoth he, “a master of the noble science of defence;” and, plucking out several sealed parchments, “These,” said he, “are the attestations of my exploits.” At which word, all his testimonials fell out of his hand, and a couple of devils would fain have whipped them up, to have brought them in evidence against him at his trial; but the fencer was too nimble for them, and took them up himself. At which time, an angel offered him his hand to help him in; but he, for fear of an attack, leaped a step backward, and with great agility, alonging withal, “Now,” says he, “if ye think fit, I’ll give ye a taste of my skill.” The company fell a laughing, and this sentence was passed upon him: that since by his rules of art he had occasioned so many duels and murders, he should himself go to the devil by a perpendicular line. He pleaded for himself, that he was no mathematician, and knew no such line; but while the word was in his mouth a devil came up to him, gave him a turn and a half, and down he tumbled.

After him, came the treasurers, and such a cry following them, for cheating and stealing, that some said the thieves were coming; others said no; and the company was divided upon’t. They were much troubled at the word, thieves, and desired the benefit of counsel to plead their cause. “And very good reason,” said one of the devils, “here’s a discarded apostle that has executed both offices, let them take him, where’s Judas?” When the treasurers heard that, they turned aside, and by chance, spied in a devil’s hand, a huge roll of accusations ready drawn into a formal charge against them. With that, one of the boldest among them: “Away, away,” cried he, “with these informations; we’ll rather come to a fine and compound, though it were for ten or twenty thousand years in purgatory.” “Ha! ha!” quoth the devil, a cunning snap that drew up the charge, “if ye are upon those terms ye are hard put to’t.” Whereupon the treasurers, being brought to a forced put, were e’en glad to make the best of a bad game, and follow the fencer.

These were no sooner gone, but in came an unlucky pastry-man; they asked him if he would be tried. “That’s e’en as’t hits,” said he. At that word, the devil that managed the cause against him, pressed his charge, and laid it home to him, that he had put off cats for hares; and filled his pies with bones instead of flesh; and not only so, but that he had sold horse-flesh, dogs, and foxes, for beef and mutton. Upon the issue, it was proved against him, that Noah never had so many animals in his ark as this poor fellow had put in his pies (for we read of no rats and mice there), so that he e’en gave up his cause, and went away to see if his oven were hot. Next, came the philosophers with their syllogisms, and it was no ill entertainment to hear them chop logic, and put all their expostulations, in mood and figure. But the pleasantest people in the world were the poets, who insisted upon it, that they were to be tried by Jupiter; and to the charge of worshiping false gods, their answer was that through them they worshipped the true one, and were rather mistaken in the name than in the worship. Virgil had much to say for himself, for his Sicelides Musæ; but Orpheus interrupted him, who being the father of the poets desired to be heard for them all. “What, he?” cried one of the devils, “yes; for teaching that boys were better bed-fellows than wenches; but the women had combed his coxcomb for him, if they could have catched him.” “Away with him to hell once again,” then they cried; “and let him get out now if he can.” So they all filed off, and Orpheus was their guide, because he had been there once before. So soon as the poets were gone, there knocked at the gate a rich penurious chuff; but ’twas told him that the Ten Commandments kept it, and that he had not kept them. “It is impossible,” quoth he, “under favour, to prove that ever I broke any one of them.” And so he went to justify himself from point to point: he had done this and that; and he had never done that, nor t’other; but in the end, he was delivered over to be rewarded according to his works. And then came on a company of house-breakers and robbers, so dexterous, some of them, that they saved themselves from the very ladder. The scriveners and attorneys observing that, ah! thought they; if we could but pass for thieves now! And yet they set a face good enough upon the business too; which made Judas and Mahomet hope well of themselves; “for,” said they, “if any of these fellows come off, there’s no fear of us.” Whereupon they advanced boldly, with a resolution to take their trial; which set the devils all a laughing. The guardian angels of the scriveners and attorneys moved that the evangelists might be of their counsel; which the devils opposed, “for,” said they, “we shall insist only upon the matter of fact, and leave them without any possibility of reply, or excuse. We might indeed content ourselves with the bare proof of what they are; for ’tis crime enough that they are scriveners and attorneys.” With that, the scriveners denied their trade, alleging that they were secretaries; and the attorneys called themselves solicitors. All was said, in effect, that the case would bear; but the best part of their plea was church-membership. And in fine, after several replications and rejoinders, they were all sent to Old Nick; save only two or three, that found mercy. “Well,” cried one of the scriveners, “this ’tis to keep lewd company!” The devils called out then, to clear the bar, and said they should have occasion for the scriveners themselves, to enter protestations in the quality of public notaries, against lawless and disorderly people; but the poor wretches, it seems, could not hear on that ear. To say the truth, the Christians were much more troublesome than the pagans, which the devils took exceeding ill; but they had this to say for themselves, that they were christened when they were children, so that ’twas none of their fault, and their parents must answer for’t. Judas and Mahomet took such courage, when they saw two or three of the scriveners and attorneys saved that they were just upon the point of challenging their clergy; but they were prevented by the doctor I told ye of, who was set first to the bar, in company with an apothecary and a barber, when a certain devil, with a great bundle of evidences in his hand, informed the court that the greatest part of the dead there present were sent thither by the doctor then at the bar, in confederacy with his apothecary and barber, to whom they were to acknowledge their obligation for that fair assembly. An angel then interposing for the defendant, recommended the apothecary for a charitable person and one that physicked the poor for nothing. “No matter for that,” cried the devil; “for I have him in my books, and am able to prove that he has killed more people with two little boxes than the King of Spain has done with two thousand barrels of powder, in the low-country wars. All his medicines are corrupted, and his compositions hold a perfect intelligence with the plague: he has utterly unpeopled a couple of his neighbour villages, in a matter of three weeks’ time.” The doctor he let fly upon the ’pothecary too, and said he would maintain, against the whole college, that his prescriptions were according to the dispensatory; and if an apothecary would play the knave, or the fool, and put in this for that, he could not help it. So that without any more words the ’pothecary was put to the sommersault, and the doctor and barber were brought off, at the intercession of St. Cosmus and St. Damian.

After these, came a dapper lawyer, with a tongue steeped in oil, and a great master of his words and actions; a most exquisite flatterer, and no man better skilled in the art of moving the passions than himself, or more ready at bolting a lucky president at a dead lift, or at making the best of a bad cause; for he had all the shifts and starting-holes in the law at his fingers’ ends. But all this would not serve, for the verdict went against him, and he was ordered to pay costs. In that instant, there was a discovery made of a fellow that hid himself in a corner, and looked like a spy. They asked him what he was. He made answer, “An empiric.” “What,” said a devil, “my old friend Pontæus: Alas! alas! thou hadst ten thousand times better be in Covent Garden now, or at Charing Cross; for upon my word thou’t have nothing to do here, unless, perhaps, for an ointment for a burn or so;” and so Pontæus went his way. The next that appeared were a company of vintners, who were accused for adulterating and mingling water with their wines. Their plea was that in compensation they had furnished the hospitals with communion-wine that was right, upon free cost; but this excuse signified as little as that of the tailors there present, who suggested that they had clothed so many friars, gratis; and so they were dispatched away together. After these, followed a number of bankers, that had turned bankrupt to cozen their creditors; who finding there several of their old correspondents, that they had reduced to a morsel of bread, began to treat of composition; but one of the devils presently cried out, “All the rest have had enough to do to answer for themselves; but these people are to reckon for other men’s scores as well as their own.” And hereupon, they were forthwith sent away to Pluto with letters of exchange; but, as it happened at that time, the devil was out of cash.

After this, entered a Spanish cavalier, as upright as Justice itself. He was a matter of a quarter of an hour in his legs and reverences to the company. We could see no head he had, for his prodigious starched ruff that stood staring up like a turkey-cock’s tail, and covered it. In fine, it was so fantastic a figure that the porter was gaping at it a good while, and asked if it were a man, or no? “It is a man,” quoth the Spaniard, “upon the honour of a cavalier, and his name is Don Pedro Rhodomontadoso,” etc. He was so long a telling his name and titles that one of the devils burst out a laughing in the middle of his pedigree, and demanded What he would be at. “Glory,” quoth he, which they taking in the worse sense, for pride, sent him away immediately to Lucifer. He was a little severe upon his guides, for disordering his mustachios, but they helped him presently to a pair of beard-irons, and all was well again.

In the next place, came a fellow, weeping and wailing. “But, my masters,” says he, “my cause is never the worse for my crying, for if I would stand upon my merits, I could tell ye that I have kept as good company, and had as much to do with the saints as another body.” “What have we here,” cried one, “Diocletian, or Nero?” For they had enough to do with the saints, though ’twere but to persecute them. But upon the upshot, what was this poor creature but a small officer, that swept the church and dusted the images and pictures. His charge was for stealing the oil out of the lamps and leaving all in the dark, pretending that the owls and jackdaws had drunk it up. He had a trick too of clothing himself out of the church habits, which he got new-dyed; and of cramming his porridge with consecrated bread, that he stole every Sunday. What he said for himself, I know not; but he had his mittimus, and took the left-hand way at parting.

With that, a voice was heard, “Make way there, clear the passage;” and this was for a bevy of handsome, buxom Bona Roba’s, in their caps and feathers that came dancing, laughing, and singing of ballads and lampoons, and as merry as the day was long. But they quickly changed their note, for so soon as ever they saw the hideous looks of the devils, they fell into violent fits of the mother; beating their breasts, and tearing their hair, with all the horror and fury imaginable. There was an angel offered in their favour that they had been great frequenters of Our Lady’s chapel. “Yes, yes,” cried a devil, “less of her chapel, and more of her virtue, would have done well.” There was a notable whipster, among the rest, that confessed the devil had reason. And then her trial came on, for making a cloak of a sacrament, and only marrying, that she might play the whore with privilege, and never want a father for her bastards. It was her fortune alone to be condemned; and going along, “Well!” she cried; “if I had thought ’twould have come to this, I should ne’er have troubled myself with so many masses.”

And now, after long waiting, came Judas and Mahomet upon the stage, and to them Jack of Leyden. Up comes an officer and asked which of the three was Judas. “I am he,” quoth Jack of Leyden. “Nay, but I am Judas,” cried Mahomet. “They’re a couple of lying rascals,” says Judas himself, “for I am the man: only the rogues make use of my name to save their credit. ’Tis true I sold my Master once, and the world has ever since been the better for’t; but these villains sell Him and themselves too every hour of the day, and there follows nothing but misery and confusion.” So they were all three packed away to their disciples.